Best Driver: Worst Driver: Best Rookie/New Driver: Best Team: Surprise Team: Worst Team: Best Overtake: Most Surprising Result: Least Surprising Result: Funniest moment: Excuse of the week: Special Mention: Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: ?/10
Best Driver: Hamilton by far. It was the most perfect weekend of his carear Worst Driver: Kvyat. Seems to have got desperate again maybe he is worried about his seat. Best Rookie/New Driver: Vandoorn Best Team: Mercedes. How did they get a 1-2?? Surprise Team: Worst Team: Ferrari, 2 tyre failures!! how? pushing above their weight Best Overtake: Ricciardo Most Surprising Result: Bottas 2nd Least Surprising Result: Alonso retirement Funniest moment: Brundle saying he vomitted over this race! Excuse of the week: Wollf saying Grosjean is lucky to be in F1 anyway. Special Mention: Alonso in Q1. It was magic Best post from the race thread: Pics from Eddie Race Rating: 7/10
Best Driver: Both Mercedes drivers. Bottas with a measured and determined recovery drive, albeit promoted by others' misfortune. Hamilton's qualifying and blistering* (literally) race pace must not be overlooked. Perhaps the two of them have a fair claim for this one. Worst Driver: Kvyat. Although like Maldonado before him, he's quick, determined and fiesty, he's also closing in on a similar tally of self-inflicted incidents. The parallels are all too easy to see. Also Ericcson. In my opinion, he's below the required standard for F1 – possibly more so than Palmer. Best Rookie/New Driver: Ocon. Best Team: Mercedes. Surprise Team: Renault were faster than I'd expected. By the same token, Williams were slower. Worst Team: Toro Rosso team mates collided; a disaster from every perspective. Kvyat needs to calm down if he is to avoid being labelled as the new Maldonado but whisperings have already begun. But pound for pound, I think this award goes to Ferrari. I think the team was over-ambitious with set up, exacerbated by earlier than necessary pit-stops due to pressure from Red Bull. Best Overtake: Although drivers exceeded track limits, the Vettel / Verstappen scrap was one of the most exciting of the season so far. Both drivers did it – and for this reason I agree with the stewards that neither gained a clear advantage over the other. The only alternative would have been to punish them both – which would have served no purpose other than infuriating the many who believe F1 is already over-regulated. Ricciardo also worth a mention here for some stunning moves, even though the Red Bull was the better car on every occasion. Most Surprising Result: Ferrari suffering tyre failures with both cars in the closing laps. Least Surprising Result: Hamilton victory. Alonso retirement. Silverstone's fast right-handers demand an awful lot from the front left. Funniest moment: As ever, this depends upon one's perspective. Crowds cheering Vettel's blow out was a bit cruel. Excuse of the week: Whatever Kvyat says always sounds like an excuse now. Special Mention: Räikkönen was unfortunate not to Finnish second. I believe his delaminated tyre was entirely due to set up. Palmer: a very sad way to go out of one's home Grand Prix, especially when he'd already been contemplating it might be his last. Sainz was also unlucky to be out of the race so early. Hulkenberg was good in qualifying – especially when it was wet – and then unlucky during the race with a mechanical problem beyond his control. Ricciardo: a great recovery drive. Also, Alonso's qualifying in Q2 was a special moment, very much appreciated by just about everyone within ten square miles! (Thanks for the reminder, Bando. Just read your post). Vandoorne also performed well. Best post from the race thread: No doubt at all: eddie_squidd and his superb photos. (Thanks again, EB). Race Rating: 9.42/10 For the non-partisan, this was a scintillating race with all kinds of excitement, except for Hamilton… *Hamilton complained of blistering but was able to ride it out. I mentioned earlier in the year that Mercedes' long wheelbase is best suited to very high speed corners but also that it would be a tricky car to set up for most circuits, especially by comparison to the superb Ferrari chassis. But it should come as no surprise that Silverstone turned the tables with Mercedes finding the better set up. Ferrari (and Red Bull) should do much better at Hungary where Mercedes is likely to struggle again. Spa will be interesting; Monza and Suzuka should suit Mercedes. Prospects are good for a ding-dong all the way!
Best Driver: Hard to split Hamilton, Bottas and Ricciardo Worst Driver: Kvyat - fairly straightforward Best Rookie/New Driver: Did anyone stand out? Vandoorne perhaps. Best Team: Mercedes Surprise Team: Renault Worst Team: Whilst Toro Rosso have torpedo-management issues, I think operationally Ferrari were worse this weekend. Missed the obvious call to pit Vettel for a free stop. Best Overtake: I enjoyed the extended Vettel/Max battle. Most Surprising Result: Bottas 2nd Least Surprising Result:Hamilton lights-to-flag win. Funniest moment: "Minimal Talking" Excuse of the week: Kvyat trying to say Sainz turned in on him. So bad it's funny. Special Mention: Kimi was excellent all weekend, Hulk too. Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: 9/10 - thoroughly enjoyed it
Best Driver: The Laggard. Winning in the fastest car when your team-mate has been demoted down the grid isn't worthy imo, too easy, so the laggard gets my vote. Worst Driver: Kvyat, starting to think his name here should be part of the template. Or Vettel, who blew his weekend himself. Best Rookie/New Driver: Ocon, again Best Team: Mercedes Surprise Team: FI are no longer a surprise, so Renault. If they had 2 drivers they could challenge FI & Williams. Worst Team: I think it'll always be Sauber, even more so now that Ericsson's sponsors have bought the team and made him the number 1, he's number 2, and I don't mean his driving position within the team. Best Overtake: I'll say Max on Vettel on L1 Most Surprising Result: probably Hulk Least Surprising Result: Mercedes Funniest moment: Wolf bitching about Grosjean whilst forgetting he got his wife a drive. Excuse of the week: The Stewards decision which pretty much said Lewis was guilty but they weren't going to punish him because (insert reason). Special Mention: Lewis, Bottas and Ricciardo. Was a shame Danny took a trip to the gravel early on or he could've beaten Mr Weaver. Best post from the race thread: something I wrote Race Rating: 8.951/10, a decent race, shame the Vettel-Verstappen duel couldn't go on a bit longer, I really really really want renault to upgrade their engine for another .5
Best Driver: IMO... Ricciardo saved the race in the middle there. I would give it to him for the drive. Bottas.. meh.. i'd expect it in the car frankly. hamiton was clealry fastests but he had an easy ride too so i'm going for ricciardo as he had the inferior car and made the race. Worst Driver: Kvyat. should not remain in f1 after this year. Best Rookie/New Driver: cannot say ocon cos his team again f'd up with him holding his team mate up and both lost paces as a result. Best Team: Mercedes is the simple answer. Surprise Team: Renault and hulkenbrug completely unexpected Worst Team: team.... hmm... force india for fialing to manage a potential great situation or Ferrari for running tyres to death... hmmmm Best Overtake: I reckon ricciardo. I don't agree with the verstappen stuff. Most Surprising Result: Raikkonen being quicker than vettel all race Least Surprising Result: Hamilton easily winning. i did say it in thread Friday and saturday Funniest moment: hmmmm not many tbh. I reckon karma on vettel might qualify for some. really there wasn't much Excuse of the week: Kvyat tfor sure i agree. crazy stuff Special Mention: Alonso on saturday. great moment that Best post from the race thread: Race Rating: 8/10 - it was good but i was kind of hoping ofr more passing as silverstone is a wide place and lots of action can occur. I thought all the teams suffered a bit on tyres so ricciardo and bottas deffo (due to penalties) turned that could have been a very dull affair into quite a good race
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You know I'd agree with you on max 99% of the time, he plays fast and loose with racing etiquette (as they all seem to) and crosses the line (both theoretically and literally) far too much for my liking, but his move on Vettel around the outside was brilliantly opportunistic. The problem with Max is he makes good TV, so they won't touch him for anything which is a shame, if they punished him for his weavey defending he might stop doing it, people would over-take him and he could attack again, which would be far better TV.
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My view is that vettel passed him and he went off track then pushed vettel wide so he broke just about every rule. so while it looked good it was illegal. I found the excuse that this somehow impacted vettel ridiculous later on as they had pitstop after it. They did punish it sort of then took it back in the off season so its now legal. I would rather someone drive him into a wall / gravel trap to teach him a lesson than any amount of wrist slapping and moaning on radios.
You looking over my shoulder, Ern? 8.95 was my earlier figure, rounded from 8.951 ! – Perhaps I should not have factored in Silverstone's 'most electric crowd of the season' atmosphere? (As you know, this is 0.472)…
Ah, we're talking about different moves, the move I gave him overtake of the day for wasn't his corner cutting move but the original move that put him ahead when he went around the outside on first lap. The later move I didn't really like, but it came as a result of Vettel crowding him off, both could've (and probably should've) been given a penalty. One of the reasons I want Renault to get 0.5 more from the engine is that it would give us a proper chance at Max v Lewis, they'll teach each other a lesson, good time to buy shares in whoever supplies Merc & RBR's carbon fibre when they do.
ah ok... yes that was great stuff no question good first lap no question. Its all about consistency of rule on the second one. Lewis and rosberg last year... rosbrg gets a penalty for pushing him off track. There is no contact, max refuses to give in so ends up off the track... his own fault really... vettel did the right things.. max keeps foot in off the track comes back on and then squeezes vettel out. no issue with him squeezing him.. its going off the track thats for me is inconsistent.
I thought Rosberg was very harshly treated by the stewards last season if you compare it to what had gone on previously, the difference was Rosberg decided to play the same game as Hamilton, that meant a collision was guaranteed and that meant the stewards were going to look it it even if the affected team didn't complain. When Rosberg was taking urgent avoiding action when being driven off the track by Hamilton it wasn't in Mercedes best interests as a team to make a complaint against their driver (it shouldn't really need a complaint, but that's how it is). In this instance I don't think Ferrari complained about Max's off track move, I didn't see it put up for investigation, so it's really Ferrari's fault for not making the complaint.
Be honest though....Hamilton's defending was nothing like Rosberg's clumsy driving. You should take a better look at the replays from last year.
I saw it all, Rosberg left enough space for 2 cars to get through in Austria and Lewis simply turned into him, he didn't suddenly swerve midway through a corner and force him off, like Hamilton did at Hungary a year or 2 before.